The Modernist Short Story: A Study in Theory and Practice - Hardcover

The modernist period saw a revolution in fictional practice, most famously in the work of novelists such as Joyce and Woolf. Dominic Head shows that the short story, with its particular stress on literary artifice, was a central site for modernist innovation. Working against a conventional approach and towards a more rigourous and sophisticated theory of the genre, using a framework drawn from Althusser and Bakhtin, he examines the short story's range of formal effects, such as the disunifying function of ellipsis and ambiguity. Separate chapters on Joyce, Woolf and Katherine Mansfield highlight their strategies of formal dissonance, involving a conflict of voices within the narrative. Finally, Dominic Head's challenging conclusion takes the implications of his study into the age of postmodernism.

The modernist period saw a revolution in fictional practice, most famously in the work of novelists such as Joyce and Woolf. Dominic Head shows that the short story, with its particular stress on literary artifice, was a central site for modernist innovation. Working towards a more rigorous and sophisticated theory of the genre, using a framework derived from Althusser and Bakhtin, he examines its range of formal effects. Separate chapters on Joyce,Woolf and Katherine Mansfield highlight their strategies of formal dissonance, involving a conflict of voices within the narrative. A chapter on Wyndham Lewis explores the use of the form to enact the aesthetics of Vorticism, resulting in the impasse of isolationism in its view of the individual. By contrast, Malcolm Lowry's stories are shown as offering a means of transcending this, in their very different treatment of the individual's experience. Dominic Head's challenging conclusion takes the implications of his study into the age of postmodernism.The modernist period saw a revolution in fictional practice, most famously in the work of novelists such as Joyce and Woolf. Dominic Head shows that the short story, with its particular stress on literary artifice, was a central site for modernist innovation. Working towards a more rigorous and sophisticated theory of the genre, using a framework derived from Althusser and Bakhtin, he examines its range of formal effects. Separate chapters on Joyce,Woolf and Katherine Mansfield highlight their strategies of formal dissonance, involving a conflict of voices within the narrative. A chapter on Wyndham Lewis explores the use of the form to enact the aesthetics of Vorticism, resulting in the impasse of isolationism in its view of the individual. By contrast, Malcolm Lowry's stories are shown as offering a means of transcending this, in their very different treatment of the individual's experience. Dominic Head's challenging conclusion takes the implications of his study into the age of postmodernism.